Weekend Update, Arkansas style

I tried to blog a crappy cellphone photo from the Arkansas Sportshow yesterday morning, but the upload failed, so here's some stuff Maria and I shot with her Nikon D200.

I'm hanging out with a stuffed black bear in the top photo and going nose-to-nose with some kind of pointy-nosed fish in the second.

I spent almost two full days at the Sportshow last year because I was shooting for The Sun.

We met some interesting people and made contact with a guy who runs an instructional program for concealed carry permits. Maria also chatted with the guy who runs the motorcycle/scooter shop down the road from us and sat on one of his 250cc Chinese-made cruisers.

The big entertainment at this year's Sportshow is a black bear show that we watched from the safety of the upper level of the ASU Convocation Center.

The trainer feeds the bears Skittles from his mouth to get them to simulate a kiss.

We were up early this morning hacking away at fallen trees and limbs with one of our chainsaws and stacking the bigger pieces for firewood. We're going to be a long time clearing all of this debris to the point where I ran safely run a lawnmower over the yard.

Back online from home

Our cable/Internet service was restored today - 11 days after the ice storm knocked us offline and blacked out our TV.

I called the cable company yesterday and learned they were working in our area, but it could be several more days. I was told the head end (where the cable system pulls the signals down from space and sends them out to customers) was still running on generators.

Circling the wagons to fight the moonbats

I thought "states' rights" was a non-issue in the 21st century - a relic of some Southern states' efforts to block federal civil rights laws.

Not so.

At least seven state legislatures are considering measures to invoke 10th Amendment state sovereignty to block implementation of anticipated federal laws on guns, abortion and other issues.

It's my fervent hope that Arkansas and Indiana follow suit.

In Missouri, House Resolution 212 declared Missouri's sovereignty under the 10th Amendment and urges Congress to reject the passage of the federal Freedom of Choice Act, which prohibits regulations on abortion.

Montana House Bill 246 exempts from federal regulation under the commerce clause of the Constitution a firearm, firearm accessory, or ammunition manufactured and retained in Montana.

In Michigan, it's a concurrent resolution to affirm Michigan’s sovereignty under the 10th Amendment and to urge the federal government to halt its practice of imposing mandates upon the states for purposes not enumerated by the Constitution of the United States.

Arizona's legislature is considering a similar measure. Ditto New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Washington.

The various state initiatives are based on a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in New York vs. United States:

Facts of the Case

The Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management Act Amendments of 1985 required states alone or in compacts with other states to dispose of such radioactive waste within their borders. New York State and Allegany and Courtland counties were frustrated in their compliance efforts by resistance from residents to proposed radioactive waste sites and a lack of cooperation from neighboring states. New York filed suit against the federal government, questioning the authority of Congress to regulate state waste management.

Question

Does the Low-Level Waste Act violate the Tenth Amendment and the "guarantee clause" of Article Four?

Conclusion

In a 6-3 decision, the Court upheld two of the three provisions of the Act under review, reasoning that Congress had the authority under the Commerce Clause to use financial rewards and access to disposal sites as incentives for state waste management. The third provision, the "take-title" qualification, stipulated that states must take legal ownership and liability for low-level waste or by the regulatory act. "Either type of federal action," wrote Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, "would 'commandeer' state governments into the service of federal regulatory purposes, and would for this reason be inconsistent with the Constitution's division of authority between federal and state governments." This last provision violated the Tenth Amendment.

Why I hate being a landlord (continued)

I'm back on the Hastings Wifi link, pondering what to say to my renter in response to this email he sent this morning:

To let you know I have sent out the rent. I’m shipping $550 to you now. The remainder will come to you around next Friday. I’m sorry I made a big mistake in my checking account. Again I apologize for the mistake. Thanks Again

Just for the record, the rental agreement requires that he pay $1,000 a month, due on the first of the month. If any part of the rent is unpaid after the 5th of the month, he owes an additional $125 in late penalty fees.

Under the terms of the lease, they are now in default and we are within our rights to have them evicted. I'm not eager to throw a couple with four daughters and a golden retriever out into the cold of an Indiana winter, but neither am I eager to let deadbeats jeopardize my credit rating by making me late on a mortgage payment.

Ear pollution

Somebody here at Hastings Hardback Cafe really likes The Killers.

Their Hot Fuss album seems to be on continuous play on the sound system. I was able to drown it out with my iPod on Tuesday morning, but I am defenseless this morning as I try to ignore the pretentious wall of noise and sophomoric lyrics.

I guess that's the price of free Wifi.

It's officially late

No rent check in the mailbox this morning.

So, unless it miraculously appears before midnight tonight, our renter owes an additional $125 in late fees.

What the hell is so hard about writing a check and mailing it in time for it to arrive by the first of the month?

After the garage fiasco in the spring of 2007, I have very little patience with people trying to take financial advantage of me and I think it's time to make our expectations crystal clear to the renters.

Legal in Arkansas

My lunch the other day came on this cracked plate. This is a violation of Indiana health codes because cracked or chipped crockery can harbor germs.
But the manager of our favorite Mexican restaurant says it's legal here.
That said, he said he doesn't approve of it happening in his restaurant and will strive to keep it from happening again.

Fortune smiles

Did you ever notice that many Chinese restaurants hand out fortune cookies that don't contain anything predictive.
Instead, you get advice, like "rotate your tires" or "be nice to animals."
We found a Chinese eatery today where they prepare your order right in front of you for take-out or dine-in, rather than the ubiquitous buffet.
The garlic chicken was good, but could have used some more spice, and the servings were very generous for $4.50.
But the capper came when I broke open my fortune cookie and found "A nice cake is waiting for you" bracketed by smiley faces.
Now that's a fortune cookie.

Hello again from Hastings

I'm back at Hastings Hardback Cafe this morning to catch up on my Internet stuff, since we still don't have cable or Internet at home.

I always buy a large cup of coffee, so as to qualify as a legitimate customer and not a Wifi freeloader. The battery in my Sony VAIO laptop was never particularly robust and now that it's more than three years old, it barely gets me past boot-up, so I have to find a spot next to an electrical outlet to do my away-from-home computing.

I stopped at the post office on my way in to town and, of course, there was no rent check in the post office box. And, of course, my blood pressure is spiking since it was due on the first of the month.

I have my parents to blame/thank for this being a big stresser for me. I was raised to believe that it was a personal disgrace not to pay bills on time. And I understood "on time" to mean on or before the due date. I firmly believe that's what's in the minds of my creditors when they send me a bill with a due date.

That's how I built a stellar credit score prior to our present debacle with two house payments and a burdensome home equity line of credit balance resulting from our move to Arkansas.

Maria isn't as freaked out about a late rent check because her ex employed the same sleazy strategy of not paying a bill until he was right up against the date when a late penalty kicked in. And she's better than I am at focusing on things she can control and not getting bunged up over things she can't control.

Whatever. I'll try to put it aside until tomorrow's visit to the post office.

My second stop was at the newspaper where I went through a couple of months' worth of back issues from 2008 to cull out some photos for a portfolio entry in this year's state press association competition. The editor graciously invited me to submit an entry since I was a fulltime staff member from just after Christmas 2007 until the end of last February.

My agenda also includes the continued search for replacement chains for our two nearly brand new chainsaws. The forecast is for temperatures in the upper 50s and lower 60s this weekend and the ice storm debris isn't going to take care of itself.

There are still a lot of people without electricity - the couple we sat next to at lunch yesterday reeked of kerosene - and some are getting angry to the point of violence.

Some utility crews now require police protection and the mayor of Walnut Ridge woke up yesterday to find bullet holes in her car.

Mayor Michelle Rogers, whose home is still without power, said, "People sometimes don't know who to blame and sometimes they have to blame someone.  It would stand to reason they may think, well the mayor's office, they're not doing enough or someone's not doing enough."

Her husband is a state representative.

Apparently the perception among some is that the utility crews have a priority list that assures the wealthy and influential get their power restored first. That's the kind of thinking you get from people who put their energy into hating the successful instead of trying to become successful themselves.

Electricity and intruders

Hot showers! Electric lighting! Microwave oven! Refrigerator! Furnace! Telephone service!

After a week without power, all of those things seem like outrageous luxuries.

Judging from the clock on the oven, power was restored to our house about 11:50 a.m. yesterday. I returned from my errands in town about 2 p.m. and emptied 6-pound bags of ice into the two coolers that were keeping our perishables cold on the back porch. I noticed the kitchen lights were on when I walked through the back door and immediately called Maria to share the good news.

We are mindful, of course, that the power could fail again while electric utility crews rebuild the ice storm-shattered system. The local postmistress told me her power came on last Saturday and blacked out about 24 hours later. Fortunately, it was only about  5-hour outage for her.

We left the perishables in the coolers overnight, just in case the power went off and also to give us a chance to give the fridge a thorough cleaning.

When I let the dogs out this morning, I discovered one of the coolers - the smaller one without a latch - was raided last night by one or more raccoons. The carrying handle was up, which prevented the lid from opening completely, but it could be opened enough to let a raccoon reach in and drag out a couple of bags of frozen vegetables and a partially used jar of Hershey's hot fudge ice cream topping. The jar apparently had enough residue around the cap to drive them nuts and judging from the claw marks on the label, they worked hard to get it open, but without success. They didn't seem all that interested in the Brussels sprouts and carrots.

Getting the jar out of the cooler and onto the concrete back porch floor had to be a fairly noisy enterprise, but our two dogs slept right through it. So much for canine keen senses and hyper-alertness.

We still don't have cable/Internet and given the quality of service in good weather, I don't expect to see it for another week or two or three or maybe more. But we have our Blueray DVD player and I can come to Hastings every morning - like right now- to blog, surf and do my other Internet stuff.

Now that I don't have to devote so much of my attention to keeping the house warm and lighted, I can think about other things like the fact that it's now Feb. 3 and we haven't seen our tenants' rent check for February.

And like the clusterfuck parade of tax cheats and ethically compromised dirtbags Comrade Hussein is proposing for his cabinet. I refuse to believe these people are so enormously talented and essential to our economic recovery that we have to put aside our concerns about their honesty or their competence in preparing their tax returns.

But that's what you get when you quit running elections on the basis of real issues and turn the campaign into the political equivalent of American Idol with the corrupt mainstream media coaching the sheep on how to vote.

It almost makes me wish the power would go off again.

WE HAVE POWER!

I came home a few minutes ago and found the kitchen lights on.
O, frabjous day! Calloo! Callay!

Ice storm - Day 7

The Briggs & Stratton Storm Responder generator is droning loudly on the back porch and Pete the Aussie is peering through the window, barking for me to come out and play.

Sorry, Pete. I'm busy. Maria just left for work and I have a moderate to-do list as we face another day without electricity. I have to refill gas cans, buy ice for coolers, pick up the mail (hoping that it includes a rent check from our tenants) and see about getting our two chainsaws back in working order after their day as loaners.

It occurred to me yesterday that our cable TV/ISP bill was due that day, but I had no Internet connection with which to complete the transaction. I'll try to take care of it later this morning when I go to Hastings Wifi cafe to upload this post and do other online business, but it's hard to attach a lot of importance to paying for a service that I haven't had for almost a week.

Yesterday morning's update from the Craighead Electric Cooperative informed us that we are among the 35% of the utility's customers still without power. We took Pine Log Road west to Ark. 351 on our way into town yesterday. From our subdivision west, the road is about a mile of downhill straightaway, then a couple of 90 degree curves, uphill to the Pine Log Cemetery and a lazy S-curve into a 2-mile hill-and-valley straightaway to Ark 351. We noticed that almost all of the 45-some utility poles on that 2-mile stretch are brand new - part of the more than 3,000 poles the company lost and is replacing since last Wednesday morning. We can't be sure, but we think our power comes out of the U.S. 49 corridor just east of our subdivision. A neighbor told us yesterday that the pole barn church across the highway has power, but of course, we don't.

As we hone our coping skills and throw more money at our situation, life becomes incrementally easier each day. Maria used the electric skillet from Target to whip up a tasty brunch of fried potatoes, egg and bacon yesterday, and I made my first pot of fresh coffee in almost a week this morning thanks to power from the generator. We've been heating water in pans on top of the kerosene heater and the propane grill side burner for coffee and cocoa, but I was getting tired of the single serving Folger's coffee teabags.

We were invited to a Super Bowl party last night and it was nice to get out of the house and enjoy someone else's heat and light for a change.

We were ready to hit the sack as soon as we got home and let the dogs out to do their business in the back yard. As I've mentioned before, Ruthie sleeps on the bedroom carpet, but I was loathe to put Pete back into the kennel he'd already spent more than four hours in. So we decided to give him the rare treat of sleeping on the bed with us. The problem is that we know he will wake up sometime around 2:30 or 3 a.m. and want to go outside, something he doesn't do when he sleeps in his kennel. Besides that, Pete is an inert lump when he sleeps on the bed. Imagine having a 40-pound bag of water softener salt plunked down against your lower legs, seriously limiting your freedom of movement between the lump and the side of the bed.

It was almost a relief when he rose, flopped over Maria's body and started licking her hand about 2 a.m. After a couple of minutes in the backyard with Ruthie, he came in and went directly to his kennel, apparently as ready to be by himself as we were to have the bed to ourselves.

Sitting in a sunbeam

Drinking coffee at Barnes & Noble where a Starbucks barista like uses the word "like" several times in, like, every sentence. She must really like like.

Ice storm - Day 6

We ran to Lowe's this morning and scored 5 gallons of kerosene & a 1 gallon gas can. Then it was off to Target where we scored an electric skillet.
More later.

Dozing in a sunbeam

Saturday afternoon naptime.

Ice Storm - Day 4 (afternoon)

Ruthie inspects the second hit our backyard fence took. This time on the opposite side of the yard and as the ice was melting this morning.

There was still lots of ice waiting to come down by mid-morning. The tree on the far right is the one that worried me the most because it towers over the west end of the house.

It's about 4:30 p.m. and I'm at the public library, using their Wifi. I had to come back into town because I discovered, while reading the owner's manual for the generator, that it needs an oil change after the first five hours of operation. I've run it about two hours today and I know we'll pass that mark this evening, so I need to pick up a quart of 10W30 motor oil.

I also discovered that the generator is also capable of putting out 240-volt power, which makes it possible to do laundry. Unfortunately, both of our water heaters are hardwired, so we can't have hot water for laundry or showers.

Most of the ice is melted, but there's still too much ice and branches falling out of the trees for it to be safe to stand under them. Things should be stable enough to do some chainsaw work tomorrow.

In the meantime, we can run our TV and DVD player for some welcome home entertainment tonight.

Ice storm - Day 4 (continued)

I'm writing this from the relative comfort of my living room with our new generator droning away in the background.

It turns out Lowe's got two truckloads of generators from Memphis just before dawn today. I was among about 50 people queued up at the front door when they took pity on us and let us in 10 minutes ahead of their regular 7 a.m. opening time.

We filed through the store in orderly procession to the Receiving area where employees had scores of the big blue flat handcarts lined up, each with a Briggs & Stratton generator on it. We each grabbed a cart and wheeled it directly to the checkout lanes and were out of the store inside of 15 minutes.

I stopped at a gas station and filled our 5 gallon gasoline can, which turns out to be less than the capacity of the generator's fuel tank. So I'll take the empty can with me when I go into town and fill up again.

The generator was a breeze to set up and it started on the first pull at precisely 9:15 a.m. Since we have no cable/internet connection, I'll have to wait until I get a Wifi connection in town to post this to my blog.

I found a small electric space heater we had used infrequently at our previous home and have that cranked up, giving the kerosene heater a rest.

We woke up about 2:30 a.m. for a little episode of paranoia. Maria thought she heard a suspicious noise. I thought it was probably Pete shifting in his kennel, which we keep in our bedroom. (Ruthie prefers the bedroom carpet for sleeping and Pete likes the kennel.) Failing that, I supposed it was more falling tree debris.

But we also couldn't discount the possibility of an intruder. After all, it's very dark around here at that hour of the morning and there's always the possibility of crackheads or other miscreants looking for dark, empty houses to burglarize.

So I chambered a round in my .45 automatic, grabbed the insanely bright tactical flashlight and cautiously swept the house and the garage. Of course there was nobody there, but I did discover to my chagrin that I had neglected to lock the front door when I went out to check on falling ice and limbs yesterday afternoon.

Even though we just laid out more than $800 for a generator, the idea of spending another $300 or so for a set of Crimson Trace laser grips for my .45 Colt Combat Commander is gaining traction in my thought process.

I had a fleeting thought this morning about how much money we're saving on our electric bill. Then everything snapped into focus - the kerosene heater and fuel, the generator and fuel, the spoiled groceries, the smashed fence, possible roof damage. Suddenly, the biggest electric bill we got last winter - $220 - seems like a hell of a deal.

Hard hat zone

Watching the thawing ice come crashing down, sometimes with big limbs.

Ice storm - Day 4

It's 5:40 a.m. And I'm sitting in the parking lot at Lowe's waiting for them to open at 7 a.m. They presumably received a shipment of 120 generators overnight and I'm third or fourth in line to fork over $800 to have electricity.
We learned of the shipment from our neighbors last night so I got up at 5 a.m.
The local tv weather girl, simulcasting over a radio station, said the temperature should get to 40 today, but a fast-moving clipper system may "booger" our chances for a major thaw today.
Yeah. That's how they talk on tv here.

Damn!

The neighbors have a generator and their lights are on while I sit here with candles.